Today’s bike ride was slightly different.
After a long while of not listening to my Inner Being, her gentle questions & innocent desires are almost mute. Jessica Hicks informed me yesterday that I am “mean”- that the sweet desires of my inner self have been denied through the form of trickery. My body has been co-opted by a Destructive Force, and there are many behaviors that I do to give that force power. Today, I was riding my bike down the same street, listening to what sounded like the same music, for the umpteenth day in a row. I thought of a song I’d heard on Green Lane the day before,
“So leeeet me go,
I don’t wanna be your hero,
I don’t wanna be a big man,
I just wanna fight like everyone else.
You’re a masquerade
I don’t wanna be a part of your parade
Everyone deserves a chance to
Walk with everyone else…”
I thought of this originally as my Inner Self begging my Destructive Self to let her go; she didn’t want to be a hero. She just wanted to be normal. To not have a complex. To not be phenomenal. This “phenomenality” of being near extinction is just a masquerade. It’s a parade for those I contend with in the world to look but not touch, see but not understand. A masquerade of deceit: concealing all the incongruenices of my character. This parade is only that: a show. Shoving down, abusing, neglecting, & manipulating my Inner Self, who really just wants to suffer in this daily charade called life, fighting to hold the tension of two opposites & walk with dignity, all at once.
But today, on my bike, in my head, I heard it differently: maybe my Destructive Self is asking my Inner Self to let her go. Because she’s not all that special. She’s not all that worth holding on to. She’s telling me she’s NOT my hero, and she just wants to be released back into the world of archetypes, to fight like everyone else.
I marveled at then immediately gawfed at this thought, as if there weren’t already 1,001 reason for me to cut off mindless destruction. It was going to be another moment of inertia: not being fully convinced that my own suffering was enough of a reason to change my behavior. Being pulled into the habit of destruction, yet again.
However, upon reaching Green Lane, my heart raced at an erratic pace, & I felt depleted. My boney body, pounding me from within to let her rest. It was time to turn left to the gym. Something inside me turned the handlebar right. Something I haven’t felt in a very long time took over, and suddenly, I was free to go anywhere. So I biked, knowing I was missing the gym, knowing I was abandoning my beloved Succubus. And I smiled the most genuine smile of a long time. I explored the streets, the sunset, the families. I rode down the familiar bike path with eyes anew. I saw crumungeny old men tangled up in their dog’s leash, pink lush of the sky in the form of cotton candy forming the backdrop of a father holding a little girl upside down as she giggled with the mom walking by their side, laughing.
At the start of my PhD Program, in a true Jungian sense, I “caught the once captured spirit, brought it back, & restored it to the deprived body…”
The pandora algorithm had changed: Fix You by Coldplay was now surging through my ear drums, passing through my outer ear, caressing my inner ear, and plundering into the ear of my soul: “When you try your best but you don’t succeed
When you get what you want, but not what you need
When you feel so tired, but you can’t sleep
Stuck in reverse
And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can’t replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?
If you never try, you’ll never know
Just what you’re worth….
Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you”
Tears streamed down my face when I realized that I didn’t want to lose the very thing I can’t replace: myself. So long of getting what I want was not getting me what I needed - I have been stuck in reverse, relegating my self-love to the dumpster of my psyche. Witnessing the purity of life emanating from the touch between that child & the very two beings who brought her into this world made me realize that touch matters; and I have to be there to touch. And I have to have matter in order to be there. I have to have flesh, skin, material weight to ground me to this earth if I am ever going to experience the bliss of creating a family of my own. It’s time for me to fix myself. Because if I never try, then I’ll never know just what I’m worth…
Today’s bike ride was slightly different.
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